Expert. Genius. Guru. Influencer. Choose a noun that makes you cringe. If you’re a trainer, a teacher, a coach, a consultant, a healer, or a creative entrepreneur who has to market yourself, chances are you’ve had some noun added in front of your name that made you go, “I’m pretty sure they’re not talking about me.” Or worse, you thought, “What if they discover that I don’t know everything there is to know about my subject matter, and someone asks me a question that I don’t know the answer to, and they’re like, ‘I thought you were the expert!'” You feel like a total fraud, and you just want to crawl under the table and hide.

Yeah. I get it. Being called an expert is a terrible burden to bear, so I’m here today to tell you that you can put the burden down and stop trying to be perfect just because you’re a leader in your field. You don’t have to be an expert to help other people create success in an area where you’ve been successful before. You don’t have to be a guru to have an opinion about a topic that matters to you. If you have a business where you help other people get favourable results in life or in business by following your guidance, then you have a responsibility to use every marketing strategy available to you to help as many people find you as possible.

Being an authority is a very effective way to achieve this, because people want to work with people who are authorities in their field. One of the best ways to demonstrate your authority on a certain topic is to start sharing your opinion about it. Start creating content that educates, inspires, or entertains the people who follow you and who want to learn from you. Do this on a consistent basis, either through blogging, vlogging, or podcasting. You don’t have to be a superhero, guru, expert, genius or master to get started, you just have to believe in what you know, and be able to share that with other people so that they can get the same results you’ve already created.

Oh, and the other thing is, you have to stop judging other people when you hear them being described as experts, because by the same measure you judge them you will keep judging yourself. Own your greatness and allow other people to shine their light as bright as they possibly can. Celebrate them and celebrate yourself.

So, get your genius out of your head and into the world. Become the guru, the master, the expert. Share your magnificence. Be the guru, and make a difference right where you are with what you have, because you already know enough to give it away and to start seeing how you can help other people.

I want to hear from you. Please share with me in the comments, what is the one thing you’re going to be doing to get your genius out of your head and into the world, and become the guru you already are? Remember, sharing is caring, so share this video or tag someone who is shining their light bright and stepping into their own expertise.

Have you tried your hand at running some Facebook ads? Maybe like me, when I started out, you tasted it and failed spectacularly or maybe you got some likes on your page, you got a few comments on your ads, but you still haven’t quite worked out how the money you spent on the ads is bringing money back into your business. I get it. When Facebook pops up that little message that says, “For $20 you can reach 100,000 people” it’s very tempting to want to hit the boost button, but please, I beg you, before you hit the boost button again or before you create another ad campaign, make sure you have these three things in your business.

Number one, you have to have a Facebook pixel on your website. Having the Facebook pixel installed on your website means you can build custom audiences of people who actually visit your website. Custom audiences are like buckets of people who have viewed your products or engaged with your content on your website. One of the benefits of having your custom audiences set up is you can create look-alike audiences of those people, so now you have two buckets of people who fit the description of someone who’s likely to buy from you. When you send your ads to these custom audiences or look-alike audiences you’re putting an offer in front of someone who already knows you, already likes you and already trusts you, and so they’re far more likely to buy from your ad. Compare that to sending your ad to people who’ve never heard of you in their lives. Installing the pixel is not rocket science. You can go to a website like fiverr.com or upwork.com, where can pay an expert to do it for the cost of a cup of coffee.

The second thing you have to do before you’re running your ads is go into the ads manager and create these custom audiences. Imagine I told you, “I can hand you a bunch of your ideal customers who already know, like and trust you, and are ready to buy from you the next time you make an offer.” That’s pretty much what Facebook does with its custom audiences. You can create a custom audience of people who have visited your website. You can create a custom audience of people who haven’t visited your website in a while.

You can create custom audiences of people who’ve watched your videos. You can create audiences of people who are on your email list. You can create custom audiences of people who viewed specific pages on your website or people who liked your page, or you can create audiences of people with specific interests that might overlap with your product or service. Then, as I mentioned before, you can create look-alike audiences of those customer audiences. Seriously people, please don’t run ads if you haven’t yet created your buckets of warm audiences ready to buy from you. You will get so much more value for your money on Facebook when you target warm audiences.

The third thing you have to be clear on before you start running Facebook ads is you have to know how you’ll be measuring the return on investment for the money you’re giving Facebook. Raise your hand if you like giving Mark Zuckerberg your money without getting any money back. Yeah, I didn’t think so. Before you hit that boost button, you better be very clear on how you’re making your money back. Getting likes on your page feels great, but it doesn’t pay the bills. Getting views on your videos feels awesome, I know, but it does not put money in your back pocket. When you run ads to get leads into your business and you have a clear plan on how you’re going to turn those leads into sales, then you can start measuring the return on investment for all the bucks you give to Zucks.

There you have it, folks, three things you have to have in place before you start running ads on Facebook. If you have any questions for me on how to get started with Facebook ads, pop your question into the comments box because I love, love helping entrepreneurs get started with Facebook ads. As always, sharing is caring, so share this video with someone who’s just starting out with Facebook ads and wants to succeed. So go, be Facebook fabulous this week, and I’ll see you next week. Bye.

So you started a Facebook group and now no one is talking to each other, they’re not talking to you and there’s no engagement. It’s a little like that weird party you went to once where everyone was sitting there looking at each other, there was no music, it was weird and you couldn’t wait to get out of there. Sounds familiar? Creating and managing a really engaged Facebook group can be a challenge. It’s definitely not a case of, you build it and they will come. Creating engagement inside a Facebook group is almost like running a good party. You are the host of this party and you have to make sure everyone in the party is having a good time.

What do parties and Facebook groups have in common? Actually lots. Great parties start with a great theme. Seventies dress-up, naughty forties, priests and prostitutes. No way, that would be a terrible Facebook group. A theme is a dream or an ambition, an ideal or a vision that all the members of the group share. It’s usually not something that all do, or something that all buy, like your product or service, but rather it’s someone they want to become, or something they want from life. Pick your group theme based on who your followers want to become as a result of hanging out in your group.

The next step is sending out your invitations. The more exclusive your event, the more desirable your invitations. Promote your group on all of your social media platforms. Invite people on your list to join. Tell them what’s in it for them and why it would be amazing for them to be in this group. Please, please, please, make people request to join so that they want to be in the group. I bet you, you’ve never in your life kidnapped someone and dropped them in the middle of a party, so don’t Facebook-nap people and drop them in the middle of your group. If people didn’t ask to be in your group, they’re not going to engage with the content of your group. Five real, engaged people in a group are far better than 500 or 5000 people who don’t give a rats ass about your group.

Use those magnificent marketing skills you have and make them want to be in your group. When you’re at the party, it’s your job as the host of the party to introduce people to each other, to make connexions, to point out similarities, to find creative ways to stimulate conversation. It’s exactly the same inside your group. Welcome people as they arrive in your group, let them share something about themselves, make connexion, introduce people to each other, connect people with common interests, ask lots of questions and use theme days to stimulate the conversation.

There are ways to engage in the conversation and keep the chatter going. As the host of this group, it’s up to you to build the momentum of your group and to maintain engagement. Once your group gets big enough and you’ve done a good enough job of creating the culture in your group, then the members will start taking over, but until then it’s work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work.

Finally, remember, just like at a party, there will only be one or two people who will help you clean up afterward. You will only ever have a handful of people who consistently engage in the long run. Let those people know you appreciate them and you value their input. That’s it folks, now you know how to throw an awesome party and how to create an engaging Facebook group. Have a Facebook fabulous week and I’ll see you next week.